The Zuma spy tapes: all you need to know

Cape Town - As President Jacob Zuma loses his appeal to
block the release of the so-called “spy tapes”, News24 charts the battle that
began more than decade ago.

The tapes were at the heart of the National Prosecuting
Authority’s (NPA) decision to drop corruption charges against Zuma in 2009.

But the scandal behind the secret recordings stretches back
almost 14 years.

Where did it all begin?

In October 2001, the offices of French defence company
Thomson-CSF and Schabir Shaik, a businessman and close associate of then-deputy
president Jacob Zuma, were raided in four countries as part of an arms deal
probe.

A year later in November 2002, the Mail and Guardian
revealed that the Scorpions - a former unit of the National Prosecuting
Authority (NPA) - were investigating Zuma for allegedly attempting to secure a
bribe from Thomson, since renamed Thales.

Were they guilty?

The head of the NPA, Bulelani Ngcuka, said in 2003 that
though there was prima facie evidence of fraud and corruption against Zuma, he
would not be prosecuted as the case wasn’t strong enough to win.

Later that year, Ngcuka was embroiled in allegations he was
an apartheid spy, which led to his resignation in 2004. President Thabo Mbeki
appointed the Hefer Commission of Inquiry to investigate the allegations
against Ngcuka. The Commission found that the allegations had no basis.

The following year Shaik appeared in court on corruption
charges in which Zuma was named. Shaik was found guilty on two counts of
corruption and one count of fraud at the Durban High Court in June 2005.

Why wasn’t the matter dropped?

The trial was politically charged and implicated Zuma from
the start - prompting the new NPA head, Vusi Pikoli, to open corruption charges
against him.

Zuma was sacked as deputy president by then-president Thabo
Mbeki in June 2005, but remained as deputy president of the ANC and immediately
began mobilising support for his legal and political comeback.

In August, the Scorpions raided two of Zuma’s homes, in
Johannesburg and Nkandla, including offices of his lawyers in Durban and
Johannesburg.

But by September 2006, Judge Herbert Msimang had struck
Zuma's case off the roll, saying he had "no choice" as the
prosecution was not ready to proceed. Msimang said the State's case had
"limped from one disaster to another".

Was that the end of it?

Not by a long shot. In November 2007, the South African
Court of Appeal ruled that raids on Zuma’s home and office, conducted by
Scorpions in 2005, were legal. This paved
the way for the reinstatement of corruption charges against Zuma.

Just before the ANC’s national conference in Limpopo in
December 2007, security services secretly tapped phone conversations involving
the Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy, former NPA head Ngcuka and others outside
the NPA. These "spy tapes" reportedly recorded them discussing when
to charge Zuma with corruption.

Zuma was elected as the president of the ANC at the
conference, but shortly afterwards the NPA filed papers outlining a case against
him in the Constitutional Court.

So this is when the legal ping-pong gets going?

Absolutely - the ball goes from being in Zuma’s court to the
NPA’s, and back and forth again.

In March 2008, Zuma appealed to the Constitutional Court
against the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in favour of the NPA - his appeal
was rejected in July.

In September however, Judge Chris Nicholson ruled in the
Pietermaritzburg High Court that Zuma was entitled to make representations
before the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) decided to re-charge
him, effectively halting his prosecution.

The Supreme Court of Appeal heard the NDPP appeal and upheld
it against the Nicholson ruling in January 2009 - but dismissed the application
to have Nicholson's "political meddling" findings struck out.

In February 2009, the Pietermaritzburg High Court set out a
timeline for the Zuma case.

Why were the charges against Zuma dropped?

Despite the legal wrangle, in a matter of months more than
700 charges against Zuma were notoriously dropped by the NPA on the eve of the
2009 national election.

The NPA, after receiving representations from Zuma's
lawyers, announced in April that all charges against Zuma would be dropped.

The NDPP Moketedi Mpshe said: "I have come to the
difficult conclusion that it is neither possible nor desirable for the NPA to
continue with the prosecution."

Mpshe cited the spy tapes as his reason for dropping the
case, which Zuma’s defence said proved there was a political conspiracy against
him.

Mpshe described Scorpions boss McCarthy’s role in the tapes
as “a serious abuse of process”. However, he emphasised there had been a valid
case against Zuma.

Where does the DA come in?

In 2009, the Democratic Alliance (DA) went to court to have
Mpshe’s decision set aside, but the application was dismissed by the North
Gauteng High Court.

Following a DA appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA)
in 2011, the NPA was ordered to hand over the reduced record of its decision to
drop charges against Zuma in 2009, including the spy tapes, to the DA.

But the NPA failed to hand over the tapes, after the State
Attorney said that it was contingent on Zuma's lawyers not objecting on the
grounds of confidentiality.

Zuma's lawyers did object, so the NPA did not hand over the
record.

Ongoing delays

Throughout 2012 and 2013, the DA fought for the release of
the tapes, facing ongoing delays from Zuma’s lawyers. The DA lodged
applications in the high court to attempt to force the NPA to comply with the
SCA order, but these led to further appeals from Zuma’s legal team.

On 18 August 2014 however, the president’s legal team fell
apart at the SCA, conceding that they had no argument for keeping the tapes out
of the hands of the DA.

Ten days later, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed Zuma’s
application to prevent the release of the tapes.

The NPA now has five days to comply with the previous court
order and release the tapes.